Turning and turning in the widening gyre | The falcon cannot hear the falconer | Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold | Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world | The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere | The ceremony of innocence is drowned | The best lack all conviction, while the worst | Are full of passionate intensity. — W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming

Podcasts: NATO, AFRICOM, Racism, and the War on Libya

December 12, 2012.Interviewed by Brendan Stone, CFMU 93.3 FM, “Unusual Sources” (Maximilian C. Forte does not let us forget about what happened in Libya – from the propaganda build-up to the NATO intervention to the punishing aftermath. His new book, Slouching Towards Sirte, serves as both an investigation and a warning: what happened to Libya can happen elsewhere). Click here for thepodcast and program information, or listen hereand here, or simply listen to the file below:

December 14, 2012.Interviewed by Scotty Reid,Black Talk Radio News(“interview with Dr. Maximilian C. Forte. He works in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at Concordia University and has a new book out titled Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO’s War on Libya and Africa. The book looks at among other things, the overthrow of the Gaddafi government in Libya, the lies told to achieve this and the racist aftermath). Apologies: the audio quality is not the best:

Reviews:

“Slouching Towards Sirte is a penetrating critique, not only of the NATO intervention in Libya, but of the concept of humanitarian intervention and imperialism in our time. It is the definitive treatment of NATO’s war on Libya. It is difficult to imagine it will be surpassed.”

“Maximilian Forte challenges many of the prevailing notions, both of the left and right, about Libya and the reasons behind the NATO intervention there which toppled the government of Muammar Gaddafi….in these times in which we live, it is critical to be wary of any claims by the Western powers, especially the U.S., that they are going to war to protect human rights, for it is almost invariably the case that the war ends up violating more human rights than it protects. Indeed, human rights have sadly become the Trojan Horse the U.S. and its allies NGOs use to justify violent intervention into foreign lands. So, while the Trojan Horse story led to the famous maxim, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,” I would counsel the people of the poorer Global South, to “Beware of Westerners bearing human rights.” Certainly, Forte shows why this advice should be heeded.”